To Squeeze, Or Not to Squeeze?

Dan, my experience and that of many that I speak to is to use a squeeze page. Why? Because you win both ways...you get to send the people to your offers and you get to build a list at the same time, so that you can promote the offer more than once.

If you treat your list right and learn how to really presell people on a product, then you can expect far higher conversions that sending someone straight to a sales page.

People don't generally like being hit over the head with a sales pitch from someone they don't know, so use your squeeze page and email marketing to warm them up first.

The only way to really tell is split your entire process into two halves, one half Squeeze and the other direct pitch.

Then track your visitors and see which side of the business pulls more sales over a period of time. The only truth is in your own testing, no matter what people say...why?

Because some people will tell you that list building is the best way to make money, but THEY know how to write great presell emails and build relationships, whilst other people simply know how to find targeted traffic and send them to the right offers, but don't know how to do the whole email marketing thing...

...that's why there is not straight answer to anything you read online, as it all depends on the individual's skills (unless you go hire people, which you should once you know which side of the coin is golden ;-)

Nick,

Thankyou very much for your input. I am, of course, testing to see what happens. But I thought I would get some opinions at the same time.

I assume you haven't found to be offering a sign-up during a sales page as effective?

-Dan

Most definitely squeeze! All you see everywhere are the internet marketing gurus that live by the list. It's a very effective marketing tool.

You build it and you own it. Just like with postcards... you have to send multiple messages out for it to be effective. It's all about repetition.

There also a variety of ways of ways to generate leads for your list. You have many different places you can advertise your offer. You have article marketing, SEO, blogs, and a ton of other ways. Don't forget about PPC, CPM, buying leads, and other forms of targeted paid traffic.

I have gotten a large number of subscribers from article marketing... and the cost? Nothing except my time.

I honestly think a list can be deadly effective compared to postcards and other methods of direct marketing. You build that relationship with your list and you will have a list of buyers. I also believe that having a list online is almost more personal nowadays because everyone is e-mailing eachother.

People will give you their e-mail address if they feel they are getting something valuable to them. It's all about the offer and perceived value.

For those who do not want to opt-in I'm sure there is a way to capture there attention. Maybe you could have a link that states "Don't want to enter in your information?" and redirect them to page to increase the perceived value or get their interest in a different way such as a blog or some free videos without subscribing.

All in all list marketing should just be part of your overall marketing strategy. In other words "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Diversify.

That's just my opinion.

Now there are several ways to get people to the buy button.

1. Use a Salepages that starts off from the cold - perhaps from a search engine - think direct marketing - headlines/features/social proof. You need to warm them up in the salespage to make the sale.

2. Use a Salepages that is pre-warmed - perhaps sent from a 'gurus' list or an ad-swap - they should have presold you and given connections/hooks and add a level of trust from the off.

3. Use a Squeeze page that starts of from the cold - perhaps from a search engine - offer a free gift in exchange for an email address. This can be seen as trusting and a no lose situation. Follow up with your own presales messages and warm them up yourself and send them to a salespage or even directly to a buy button hot!

4. Use a Squeeze page that has been pre-warmed - perhaps sent from a 'gurus' list, ad-swap or even your own list! Again you have pre-sold them and exchanging their email seems even a better deal for them.

Now after any of these you can have a oto - so you could have a squeezepage with the salespage as the oto...

Rob.

I just read a great guide on building squeeze pages. It is excellent. It explains why you need to write them and how to write them right. The best piece of advice I can give you is that you have to know a little about marketing and psychology as squeeze pages by design use various "triggers" to get people to either give you an email address which shows that they are open to your products in the future or will go to your sales page and buy your product.
If you don't know enough about those psychological triggers, then you could hire yourself a professional copywriter with experience in that. Of course, reading more about them and researching would be a great help too. Good luck!

Anyway, once I am more established on this forum I will be offering this book as WSO. Stay tuned

puzon23